SEO + AI search. One connected strategy.
Your buyers are searching. On Google, on ChatGPT, on Gemini. When they ask who to call, your name should come up first.
PBJ Marketing is an SEO company based in Washington, DC and New York City. We help healthcare providers, professional services firms, nonprofits and home services companies rank, get cited by AI and turn searches into leads.
Searches → Qualified leads
One dedicated expert runs your account and meets with you. No cookie-cutter audits. No recycled content. Just results you can see.
01 / Real organizations. Measurable impact.
We measure SEO by what it brings in, not by how good a traffic chart looks. Here are four of our favorites.
301% more appointment requests in 9 months.
Boundless, an Ohio nonprofit serving people with developmental disabilities, went from 192 appointment request clicks in September 2025 to 770 in June 2026. Over the same stretch, it went from 0 to 51 Google AI Overview appearances.
Read the Boundless case study547% more form submissions and 249% more LLM traffic.
JSSA, a health and social services nonprofit serving DC, Montgomery County and Northern Virginia, grew leads with local landing pages, Google Business Profile work and AI search optimization.
Read the JSSA case study343% more local form submissions.
MATClinics' last agency drove national traffic that never booked. We refocused on local intent in Maryland, and MATClinics now ranks #1 for Suboxone searches near its clinics.
Read the MATClinics case study610% more organic traffic in one year.
After splitting from Olam Group, Olam Agri needed to build its own search presence. Keyword coverage grew 5x.
Read the Olam Agri case studyThe foundations still matter.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the work of making your website easy for search engines and AI tools to find, understand and recommend, so the right people land on your site when they search for what you offer. It covers your site's technical health, the content on your pages, your reputation across the web and your local listings.
In 2026, SEO also decides whether you show up in AI answers. Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity pull their recommendations from pages they can crawl, trust and quote. The same foundations that help you rank in Google help you get cited by AI.
02 / Search has changed. Opportunity hasn’t.
Search didn't go away. It spread out. Your buyers still Google you, and now they also ask AI tools for a shortlist before they ever visit your site.
Google says AI Overviews now reach more than 2.5 billion people a month (Dataconomy, reporting on Google I/O 2026), and ChatGPT hit 900 million weekly users in February 2026 (TechCrunch). Good SEO puts you in front of both audiences.
Pew Research found Google users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, versus 15% when it didn't (Pew Research Center, July 2025). Fewer clicks means the ones you do get need to come from people who are ready to act. That's what we optimize for.
Paid ads stop the day the budget does. A strong service page, a well-built location page or a trusted guide keeps bringing in leads month after month.
When your organization shows up in Google, in the map pack and in AI answers for the same question, buyers already believe you're a serious option.
03 / Built from your business.
Every plan is built from your data, your competitors and your goals. Here's what goes into it.
Your data.
Your competitors.
Your goals.
We structure your content so AI tools can read it, trust it and quote it: clear answers up top, schema markup, entity consistency across the web and crawler access through robots.txt and llms.txt. Then we track your AI citations and mentions alongside your rankings. Learn more about generative engine optimization, answer engine optimization and AI SEO.
On-page, we fix the things Google reads first: title tags, meta descriptions, header hierarchy, internal links and content that matches what people are searching for. Off-page, we earn links and mentions from relevant, reputable sites and keep your brand consistent on directories and review platforms.
For organizations with physical locations, we optimize your Google Business Profile, build location pages that actually say something about each location, clean up your citations and set up a simple way to collect more reviews. Local SEO is how JSSA and MATClinics turned searches near their locations into leads.
Slow pages, broken links, crawl errors and messy site architecture quietly cap your rankings. We audit your site in month one, fix the foundations and run health checks every month after that, so new problems get caught before they cost you traffic.
Google rewards content that shows Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust (E-E-A-T). We write and rewrite pages around your real expertise, real data and real people, with named authors and sources, not generic copy that could sit on any competitor's site.
We look past search volume to intent. Which searches come from people ready to book, apply, donate or call? What questions are buyers asking AI tools? Where are your competitors winning that you aren't? That research decides what we build and in what order.
Traffic only matters if it turns into leads. We look at where visitors drop off, then tighten calls to action, forms and page layouts so more of them reach out. See our conversion rate optimization services.
04 / A clear plan from day one.
We recommend a 6-month engagement. SEO builds on itself, and six months gives the work enough time to show up in your rankings, your AI visibility and your lead numbers.
Month 1:
We start by learning your business and your site inside and out. In month one we:
Run a full technical audit and fix what's holding the site back, from speed and crawl errors to broken links and indexing issues
Do keyword and query research, including the questions your buyers ask AI tools
Analyze the competitors who are ranking where you want to be
Find content gaps: services, locations and questions your site doesn't cover yet
Implement schema markup and set up conversion tracking, so we can measure leads, not just traffic
Build your roadmap for months two through six
05 / Expertise that knows your world.
We focus on four industries, so we already know your buyers, your compliance concerns and what your leadership will ask about in the next report.
Practices, health systems and behavioral health providers. We understand the higher bar Google sets for health content and how to meet it.
See our healthcare marketing workLaw firms, accounting firms, consultancies and financial firms, where trust closes the deal and expertise has to show on the page.
See our professional services marketing workMore donations, memberships, event registrations and program sign-ups. The TLC Foundation for BFRBs saw an 88% year-over-year increase in organic traffic and a 95% increase in conference applications.
Read the TLC Foundation case studyContractors and service businesses that live and die by local search, the map pack and reviews.
See our home services marketing workThese are our focus, not our limit. We also run SEO for education, B2B, manufacturing, e-commerce and agriculture brands.
06 / Real people. In your corner.
These are the people doing the work on your account. Not a sales team that hands you off.
Director of AI Search & SEO.
Nicki leads the SEO department as the Director of SEO and AI Search at PBJ with over 12 years of SEO experience. She’s our SEO rockstar, specializing in holistic SEO and AI strategy, campaign management, client communication, employee development, data analysis and reporting, and SEO department management.
Senior AI Search & SEO Specialist.
Marisa specializes in Holistic SEO and AI Strategy, Campaign Management, Keyword Research and Tracking, Data Analysis and Reporting, Client Communication. With nearly 5+ years of SEO experience under her belt, she is always looking for innovative ways to help clients reach their goals.
AI Search & SEO Specialist.
Liz specializes in Holistic SEO and AI strategy, AI Search optimization, campaign management, content research and strategy, competitor research, UX, data analysis and reporting, and client communication. She has 5+ years of experience in the world of “battling with (or against!) Google”.
07 / A better kind of SEO partnership.
Your dedicated SEO expert runs your account and meets with you. You'll always know who's behind your results.
We don't run your site through a template. Every audit, roadmap and content plan is built from your data.
Your Google rankings and your AI visibility run on one strategy, and they pair with our paid media team when you need leads faster.
Monthly reporting focused on leads, form submissions and appointment requests, plus the rankings, traffic and AI citations that drive them.
08 / A little clarity before we start.
Investment, timing, and what it’s like to work together.
Let’s talk SEOOur base SEO plan starts at $3,500. Your price depends on what your site needs: how many services, products or locations you have, how much content we'll produce each month and how competitive your market is. We'll give you a clear number after we learn about your goals.
Most clients start seeing momentum by month six, which is why we recommend a 6-month engagement. Month one is research and technical fixes, and content rolls out from month two. Boundless saw a 301% increase in appointment requests over nine months.
No, and be wary of any SEO company that does. Google and AI tools control their own results. What we guarantee is the work: a clear plan, consistent execution and honest reporting on what's moving and what isn't.
SEO gets your pages ranking in search results. Generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) help your organization get cited and recommended in AI answers from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. They share the same foundation, so every PBJ SEO plan includes AI search optimization.
You get a monthly report and a meeting with your SEO expert. We track rankings, organic traffic, AI citations and, most importantly, conversions like contact form submissions. You'll know exactly what we did, what changed and what's next.
Yes. We work on most major platforms, including WordPress, Webflow and Wix, and we can implement changes ourselves or hand clear specs to your team.
No. Our offices are in DC and NYC, but our SEO clients are all over the country, from Boundless in Ohio to MATClinics in Maryland and Transitions Counseling in Arizona.
Let’s make it happen.
Tell us what you want SEO to do for your organization. We'll show you how we'd get there, with a plan built for you and nobody else.
Washington, DC: 80 M Street SE, Suite 100, Washington, DC 20003 | 202-937-3404
New York City: 175 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014 | 646-770-3271
At PBJ, we have many special digital marketing skills, but SEO has always been at the core. It’s a process that takes time, effort and a whole lot of knowledge.
Search engine optimization (SEO) requires multiple digital strategies and analytical processes to increase website and landing page traffic to rank higher in search engines. Keyword research, content creation, and technical analyses are essential to SEO.
Success with SEO means working with a dynamic digital agency with a proven history of excellence for businesses and organizations throughout the country. Attaining a higher position on search engine results pages (SERPs) requires an enterprising team of digital marketers who take charge and own your company’s online footprint.
For us, it all comes down to proper keyword research when optimizing your landing pages and content for your SEO campaigns. Ensuring that you use appropriate keywords and strategically place them is key. The performance of your landing page on search engine results pages (SERPs) and the authoritative linking and sharing of your content greatly depend on effective keyword research. The more your landing page and content are linked to, the stronger your on page SEO will be.
Far too many digital agencies fail to perform website audits. They simply jump right in and start generating as much traffic as possible. Unfortunately, this SEO traffic doesn’t always reach your target audience. Driving high volumes of traffic for traffic’s sake does not work.
As a proactive SEO agency, our approach is entirely different. We perform a thorough and complete website audit as soon as you come on board to itemize what needs to change, how it should be changed, and share a proactive timeline for achieving results. We also take a local SEO services perspective with our audits. We then sit down with you to ensure you understand what needs to be improved and why.
Making sure your website and landing pages are found also requires directory optimization. We ensure your business information is visible, accurate, and optimized on the big five directories: Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Facebook, and Yelp. We then use Moz Local to disseminate directory information to smaller listings.
These business directories define who you are, what you provide, where you’re located, and how best to reach you. Today’s audience constantly checks these directories to read customer reviews and understand how your business functions and how other customers use your business.
Our approach involves understanding your business, market, customers, goals, and aspirations to develop a data-driven strategy to grow your business. We then continuously carry out SEO monitoring that succeeds and ensures we’re on track to attain your long-term goals.
Some SEO agencies only provide part of the solution. Others treat each interaction as a separate transaction. We are different; our customers see us as a valued and trusted partner in their growth.
If you want to work with a trusted SEO agency that can make a real difference, contact us now.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) makes your content easy for AI search & chat systems to find, understand, and cite. We structure pages around clear questions & crisp answers, enrich them with schema and entity definitions, and publish canonical facts that stay consistent across your site & profiles. You get concise Q&A, how-to sections, and summaries backed by sources, authorship, and fresh timestamps so machines can trust the signal. The payoff is stronger visibility inside AI overviews, chat results, and voice responses, plus more qualified traffic from users who just found the exact answer they needed.
Ready for a big run-on definition? On page SEO is the practice of optimizing “elements” within both the visual interface and code of a website with the goal of ranking that website -or specific pages within- higher in search engine results. The higher you rank, the more traffic you can expect to attract to your website! The ultimate goal of on page SEO is to make it as easy as possible for search engines to 1) understand what a website is about 2) identify a page as relevant to particular keywords and 3) determine that page to be useful and worthy of ranking high on search engine results page (SERP).
An equally important part to SEO strategy, off page SEO refers to actions taken outside of your website that impact your rankings within search results pages (SERPS). The primary objective here is “link building”, which consists of getting other reputable online places (pages, sites, people, etc.) to link to or promote your website, effectively “vouching” for the quality of your content. This is no easy task! Oftentimes, it involves manual outreach, offering other sites rich, relevant content that they’d be willing to share with their audience. It’s a win, win for both parties.
Looking for the perfect blend of digital and physical presence? Local SEO is the specialized practice of optimizing your online footprint to attract nearby customers searching for your products or services in specific geographic areas. Unlike traditional SEO, local search optimization focuses on appearing in location-based queries, map packs, and "near me" searches. The cornerstone of effective local SEO? Directory management! This involves strategically listing your business across various online directories—from Google Business Profile to Bing and Apple Maps—ensuring your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information remains consistent everywhere online.
This isn't a strategy built for one type of school. We've applied it across a four-year university (Mercy University), a large public research institution (University of Maryland), a small private university (Salve Regina University), and a private school (The Beekman School).
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Ready to build a brand that stands the test of time and drives business growth? Contact us today to discuss how we can transform your brand identity with expert precision and creative insight.
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